Otherside
by sabriel-sensei
Summary: The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Satuki x OC Shoujo-ai
1. Chapter 1

1Satsuki needs more love. As a character, she fascinates me - I love those emotionless girls. This is my first attempt at a dark romance and writing in the present tense, and I'm just learning so I really would like some constructive criticism. This story is girls' love, so if that sort of thing bothers you, this isn't the right fic. Without further ado, I present to you, "Otherside." And yes, I am aware that the title isn't grammatically correct.

Satsuki and _X_ belong to CLAMP.

The sky is yellow-grey with smog, thick and heavy and choking the Tokyo streets. The wind wails like a scorned love and the air feels unpleasantly damp and dense, but there is no rain.

There hasn't been for months.

She smooths her skirt, picks at her wool stockings. It is January, but she still feels terribly hot. Her cheeks burn and her palms sweat. A thousand pairs of eyes stare, apathetic, uninterested. She is just another new student, nameless, faceless - a drone like all of them. She stands no more than an inch above five feet, her eyes are a soft and an unusual ice blue, her hair long and dark brown and uniform, but her skirt and jacket are bloody red. A transfer student. Despite her looks, she does not stand out at all.

Sensei announces her presence with a cool voice.

"We are pleased to welcome a new student today . . ." Sensei looks at the girl expectantly, cocking her head and blinking. It takes several seconds for the girl to realize Sensei can't remember her name.

"Gillespie. Nana Gillespie," she says in a half-whisper. It is a western name, as out of place and foreign as her blue eyes. A brave bespectacled boy in the back greets her, but the rest stay quiet. Many people come and go here. The little western girl is no different from the rest of them.

Sensei smiles, but her eyes do not. She is pretty and fairly young, but her face is lined with weariness and her eyes are dull and half-concealed behind foggy coke-bottle glasses. She motions for Nana to take a seat.

The girl stumbles into a middle seat, dropping her bag at her feet. Her body feels like a marionette with the strings cut - loose and not her own. She puts her notebook on her desk and neatly arranges her pencils and pen. It calms her down a bit, the pleasant monotony of organization. A place for everything and everything in its place.

Sensei begins to speak, but Nana does not hear the words. Something about World War II. She looks at her hands, folded in her lap. They seem very far away. Today is January first. New Year's, 1999. A new age dawns.

"Gillespie? Can you read page 217 in our textbook for us?"

She jerks her head up, stutters a yes. Her hands shake as she fumbles for her textbook. She flips to the page, but it swims in front of her eyes. She can't speak, her tongue seems to swell in her mouth. She coughs.

Sensei pushes her glasses up on her nose. She is not pleased. "Yatouji? Can you help her, please?"

Heads turn. Yatouji is the Rich Girl. Yatouji is the Genius.

Yatouji is the Untouchable.

She clears her throat and reads. Her voice is flat, devoid of inflection, but smooth. She makes no mistakes, she does not stutter, she does not say an "um" or an "uh."

Sensei thanks her. Nana does too, in her head. She smiles at Yatouji, and Yatouji sees.

She does not smile back.

Her hair is short, pulled loosely back from her face. A streak of chestnut runs down her bangs, and Nana wonders if it is natural. She wears heavy glasses like Sensei. Her body is thin, lean, boyish. Pretty, if one could call her that.

Nana turns her head and straightens her pencils.

The day moves by blessedly uneventfully. No more embarrassing incidents. By the time the sun begins dip below the cityscape horizon, Nana is exhausted and quite ready to go home. The days are so long here.

She puts her school shoes back into the locker. The clouds had dissolved at noon, and soft creamsicle-colored light enfolds the hallway, deserted save her. A door clangs somewhere in the distance, and a boy shouts something to his friends. The rest is silence. Nana slips out of her skirt and lets it slide to the linoleum floor with a rustle. Goosebumps speckle her skin - do they turn the heater off at this time of day? She starts on the buttons of her blouse.

"Nana Gillespie."

Nana cries out, her hand jerks and a button falls to the floor.

"I didn't mean to scare you." The girl from earlier in the day stands with a hand on one hip and that same blank expression on her face. Two lumpy bags hang off her shoulders.

The initial shock has worn off, but Nana's heart continues to flutter like a songbird's. The girl is not that much taller than Nana, but she seems so much larger. She opens her mouth to speak, but the words catch in her throat. She blushes vivid red.

The girl does not speak either. Nana can't read her face, but she isn't laughing - that's a start.

"What's your name again?" Nana clamps a hand over her mouth. Her voice sounds like it belongs to another person, soft and scratchy with disuse.

"Yatouji. Yatouji Satsuki." She drops the bags at her feet and shuffles through her locker.

"T-t-thank you, Yatouji-san, for earlier today . . ." Nana lets her hair fall over her face and stares intently at her bare feet.

"Aren't you a little old to wear such cutesy panties?" Yatouji asks off-handedly.

Nana cries out yet again. Her hands fly to her chest, then to her cutesy panty-clad nether regions in a desperate attempt to shield herself.

Yatouji pays no attention, instead stepping lithely out of her uniform.

Nana blushes even more deeply and pulls on her street clothes. "So . . . um, Yatouji-san, do you belong to a club?" Nana hates small talk, but there seems to be no other way to break the quiet between them.

"I play tennis."

"Oh - is it fun?"

"No."

"Oh." Nana fidgets. Yatouji is dressed in record time, but the other girl still stands dumbstruck and blushing furiously, her hands fumbling with the zipper of her skirt. "And thank you again, Yatouji-san."

"You can call me Satsuki-san." Satsuki shoulders her bags again and walks off without another word.

Nana sighs. Something about Satsuki makes her terribly nervous. Maybe she is "antisocial," like one of those serial killers that lurk in dark corners on TV. She shakes the thought from her head, no, no, no. Satsuki is probably just "stoic." That's what they call it. Maybe she is shy, like Nana herself. She certainly does it a whole lot better.

She pulls her sweater over her head and picks up her bag. Okaa-san should be here by now.

The shadows have deepened now, and the temperature has dropped with the sun. Nana shivers and wonders why she didn't wear something warmer than her blue-striped sweater. The front of the school is cloaked in shadow and silent, save a soft metallic clank in the distance. No husky rumble of a motor, no tense and worried, "Nana-chan? Nana-chan, I've been waiting for you . . ."

She wonders what time it is. A horrible thought strikes her; what it Okaa-san has already come and gone? Would she be spending the night here? Her toes curl inside her boots and her heart thuds. Something rattles behind her, and she jumps like a frightened cat. Nothing there. She sighs. Maybe there's a payphone nearby.

"Nana-chan? Nana-chan!"

"Okaa-san!" Nana cries. A deep red sedan pulls up at the curb, window rolled down. A smallish, bland woman in a teal sweater and her black hair in a loose bun peers out. "Nana-chan? I've been waiting for an hour. Where _were_ you?"

"I was at school, Okaa-san."

"Just get in the car, Nana-chan, please." The girl complies, and looks down shamefully.

"Okaa-san?" she says softly.

"Yes?" Okaa-san stares intently at the road ahead.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize . . . just please don't do it again. What on earth were you doing?"

"Cleaning."

Okaa-san sighs and shakes her head. A grey hair falls from her bun. "Cleaning for an hour and a half?"

"Yes, Okaa-san. My locker was really, really dirty."

"Nana-chan . . ."

The girl pulls at a hangnail. A bead of blood bubbles up to the surface and clings to the edge of her thumbnail. Nana puts the injured thumb in her mouth.

"Nana-chan, I'm worried. You're just so . . ."

Nana says nothing.

"Maybe we should get you checked you out or something."

Still silence.

"I love you, Nana-chan."

"Me too, Okaa-san."


	2. Chapter 2

1**A/N: Sorry for the small chapter this time, and the long distance between updates. It's midterm time, and I keep getting sick. Satsuki and **_**X/1999 **_**belong to CLAMP.**

It is dark by the time the little sedan pulls in front of the apartment complex. A streetlight flickers, casting ghoulish shadows over the brick walls and chainlink fence. A few lights are on and there is the telltale blue glow of a television screen in some of the windows, but a complete and eerie silence surrounds the place.

Nana has fallen asleep, her head resting on her shoulder, her face pale and nearly bluish in the glow of the lights. Okaa-san brushes her hair out of her face, smiling wanly. "Nana-chan?"

Nana plummets from her dreamscape. "Are we home?"

Okaa-san nods.

The two make their way inside, Nana still woozy from falling asleep at odd hours of the day. Okaa-san greets the owner of the complex, an elderly man with his ever-present toddler grandchildren clinging to his pant-legs. He bids them a bright good evening and engages Okaa-san in small talk The two children, one a girl and the other a boy, stare with wide eyes at Nana. She smiles at them, gives them a little wave. They smile shyly back, and the boy catches his sister's hand, pulling her behind the desk.

Nana would give anything to be that little again.

Okaa-san makes one last remark about the weather (Is that always what idle chatter is about, Nana wonders) and says goodnight, motioning to her daughter to follow her down to the darkened stairwell. Nana follows, still thinking about the little boy and girl. When she was that age, she wore cute little jumpers and her hair tied up in pigtails. When she was that little, she would play for hours outside in the tiny backyard, building whole fairytale worlds from grass and flowers and rocks. Papa liked to do his writing outside in the milder months, watching as his wife played hide-and-seek with his little girl.

The apartment is only on the second floor, with a view of the next-door brick wall. It is bland but clean, and sparsely furnished. It feels empty to Nana, hollow and cold, but Okaa-san did say this was how it was supposed to be. Okaa-san grew up in a place like this.

"What do you want for dinner, Nana-chan?" Okaa-san asks.

"I don't know, really," Nana responds.

"Does curry sound okay?"

"Sounds good, Okaa-san. I'm going to go do my homework."

Nana opens her room's door and flips on the light switch. Her room is tiny and boxlike -

just what she likes. Her western-style bed is shoved beneath a tiny window, and the unpacked

cardboard boxes occupy the left-over place. She flops onto the bed, staring at the eggshell-white

ceiling. One small bulb stares back at her. Something rattles outside, metal on metal. A peculiar rhythm begins, rising in chorus with the melancholic wail of wind. Nana sits up slowly, her hands leaving swirled patterns on her pseudo-suede bedcover.

It's raining.

The next morning starts with a feather-grey sky and yet more rain. The storm has kicked up since the evening, and many a schoolgirl and salaryman has taken up a long unused umbrella. Nana's is bright blue, now folded next to her. Okaa-san said to take the train this morning, she doesn't have time to drive her to school today. It's amusing, she thinks, how different Japan is. She used to ride the train back in New York, but it was loud and rather smelly. On rainy days like this, people were packed into the cars like sardines, nearly each one chatting away like it was their living room. Here, it was just as crowded, but blessedly quiet. People listened to their portable CD players, read the newspaper or magazines, or talked in low voices. Nana draws looks and raised eyebrows, but she forces herself not to notice. She is glad that, bone-structure-wise, she takes more after her full-Japanese mother.

People in Japan didn't come and plunk themselves down by her and stir up conversation, either. This is perhaps Nana's favorite part of the train ride. People kept to themselves or their friends, no sense talking to people one didn't know just for the fun of it. Nana buries her nose in a _2001: A Space Odyssey_. The copy is dog-eared and fairly beat-up, but it is a mainstay from another life. Eleven-year-old Nana got this book for her birthday from Papa. Nana can nearly recite the story by heart.

On the train and at school, everyone is talking about the weather. On television, the curly-haired weatherlady is bright-eyed and flushed from the cold, her purely-for-show red umbrella clasped in gloved hands. "Worries of a rain-free winter - of a rain-free future - are starting to die down!" she gushes.

The students care very little, she notices. A group of girls with pink hairpins stare out at the falling rain with wide smiles, but other than that, there is little other activity. When Nana arrives, the classroom is empty save the pink-hairpin girls, Sensei, and Satsuki. Sensei is chewing on a pen and Satsuki is typing away at a laptop on her desk. Nana says a 'hello', but nobody hears her. Such as it is - her voice is always too soft.

The rain continues to fall in sheets as the day passes by. The joy that had been so abundant in the morning has been washed away with the smog, replaced by a general aura of discomfort. Weatherlady's babble has been replaced by news stories. The unexpected water has caused more than one car accident and one death. The bad always comes with the good, Nana thinks as she watches drops slide down the window. She's stripped quickly today, out-in her still out-of-place uniform and into her blouse and skirt. Just the thought of another encounter with Satsuki makes her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Nana waits inside school, in the front of empty hallway. Okaa-san hadn't said anything about taking the train home, but then again . . .

She wishes she weren't so flaky.

She continues to stare out at the street.

"You again."

Nana whirls around. Satsuki stares at her from behind her thick-rimmed glasses and blasé expression.

Speak of the devil and he will appear.

"Hello, Satsuki-san," she says.

"Will you always be here after school?" Satsuki says. She is wearing a bright yellow

raincoat, Nana sees.

"I-I might ask you the same question."

Satsuki says nothing and pushes up her glasses.

"Is that really any of your business?"

Nana feels as if the temperature of the room has suddenly risen. "No," she replies

sheepishly, avoiding the other girl's eyes. "Do you . . . do you . . ."

"Do I what?"

"Do you need a ride?" Nana blurts.

Satsuki merely raises an eyebrow.

"Did I offend you?"

"No," Satsuki answers, her voice flat as ever. She turns and walks briskly away without another word.

Nana curses her own stupidity beneath her breath.


	3. Chapter 3

Satsuki walks down the hallway, hands in the pockets of her yellow raincoat. The school is dark and cold, nearly empty at this late hour. It's quiet as well, save the white noise of the traffic and the rain.

Satsuki loves the silence here. In the city, there is no peace, just loud, smelly, stupid people with no thought for the future whatsoever, like ants. Here, however, all that is gone, replaced by the chill and the cleanliness. Here, she can hear herself think.

Satsuki's mobile phone rings, splitting the silence. She glances at the name, wondering if it's worth answering. KANOE, it reads in blocky text.

Satsuki flips it open and answers. "Yes?" she asks.

"Hello, Satsuki-chan," comes the tinny response, followed by the woman's trademark brassy laugh. "You're doing well, I assume."

"As usual."

"Excellent. We've got business to take care of over here; could you make it over?"

"Business, as in Kamui?"

Kanoe gives a little hmpf. "Of course. What else?"

"Give me half and hour," Satsuki says, and flips the phone shut without another word. Business as usual. It's almost amusing, she thinks, that the apocalypse is coming and yet everything is still so _boring_. Kamui was nothing but a human, another snotty little brat with a severe entitlement complex.

She continues down the hall, doubling back to reach the exit. That girl is gone, she notices. Good. How strange she was, with her stutter and her furious blush. How strange it is, that someday soon she would be nothing. Satsuki can imagine her, sprawled across the street, eyes glassy and blank, pale skin crawling with flies, pretty face completely unrecognizable. Satsuki feels neither joy nor sadness. It's all routine, dull even. Monotonous. Someday soon, she herself would be the same.

The rain has let up a bit, and a tiny sunbeam pokes through a hole in the clouds. Some more sentimental people would call that 'hope.' Satsuki calls that 'nature.' She pushes the door open, and is immediately buffeted by a gust of cold wind. She tightens her rain jacket around her and continues down the street. A large portion of people have taken the opportunity to come outside and enjoy the fading sunlight, and Satsuki is forced to dart and weave through the crowd. It seems like nearly everyone is either standing still or moving against her. Satsuki walks two blocks before she breaks from the crowd and darts into a back alley. She leans against the slimy brick wall and sighs. God, how she hates Tokyo.

The alley is dark and damp, and smells of rotting garbage and wet leaves, but it's quiet, at least. Satsuki pushes her glasses further up on her nose.

"Hey there, Missy."

"Who's there?" Satsuki asks, not moving an inch.

A man peers out from behind the corner. He is very young, with a shock of messy dark hair on top of his head and clad in a crisp grey suit. He clears his throat.

Satsuki's eyes narrow. "Answer my question," she says.

In that instant, he lunges forward and takes hold of her wrist. Satsuki shouts and kicks him squarely in the crotch. He makes a peculiar squeaking noise and doubles over, clutching himself. Satsuki takes off of running down the alleyway, kicking up soggy leaves and droplets of dirty grey water from puddles that cling to her bare legs. Not _them_ again.

A split second later, the man is back on his feet and sprinting after Satsuki. "Stop! Yatouji Satsuki, by order of-" he breaks off, panting. Pitiful, Satsuki thinks. Already tired? He continues, picking up speed, but Satsuki does as well. Those people never give up. Can't they see that she can't be caught? They have a complete inability to learn from their mistakes, she thinks.

But then again, so does humanity in general.

She stops abruptly, putting her arms at her hips. The alleyway ends in a solid brick wall, stained with some sour-smelling gunk Damn.

"What the hell?" the man cries, stopping as well, hands on his knees. His face is pale and his forehead sweaty. His eyes are wide and frightened - he looks more like the hunted than the hunter. "Listen, Miss Satsuki," he says, avoiding her eyes. "I don't want to hurt you." He slips to the concrete, gasping. Satsuki can't tell if it's from fear or exhaustion.

She folds her arms over her chest but says nothing.

"If you just come with us . . ." he trails off.

"Why?" Satsuki asks.

The man stares. "I won't hesitate to use force if - if it's necessary," he pants, his voice so weak and unsteady that Satsuki doubts it. His hand moves to his jacket pocket. "Miss," he says, withdrawing a taser. His hand is shaking badly now.

Satsuki deals him a swift kick to the head, her boot colliding with soft flesh. He screams and clutches his eye, dropping the taser in the process. Satsuki frowns. "Why?" she asks. "Why do you persist when you know nothing will come of this?"

The man lunges for her with a yell, taser forgotten and abandoned, and tackles Satsuki, pushing her to the slimy concrete. She is dimly aware of a sudden sharp pain in her side. "It's what's asked of me," he says.

"Why don't you follow your own moral code?" she retorts. She is pinned like a moth on the corkboard by his sheer weight.

"What?" he asks. His is still clutching his bloody eye with one hand, and his other hand searches to pin hers down. Before he can, she smacks him with the side of one hand, and takes advantage of his surprise to wriggle free from him. The stinging pain in her side doubles in an instant, and she bites her lip so as to keep from crying out. Now that she is free, she looks down to see a cheap plastic-handled pocketknife buried in her belly. The man notices her raised eyebrows and says, quietly, "I'm sorry. If you just come with me, I can get you fixed up. I didn't mean to go that far, really. It was just-"

"Spur of the moment," she finishes, fumbling in the gloom for something, anything. Her hand closes on something slippery and cold. She seizes it and swings it at him, not really caring whatever the hell it was. Metal collides with bone with and ominous crack. The man screams, his cry sounding oddly childlike and too-loud in the gloom. Satsuki swings again and again, hot sticky blood spattering against both her and the wall.

He doesn't scream anymore.

Satsuki sighs and lies flat, strange black spots clouding her vision. That can't be good. She rises slowly to her feet and starts forward in an unsteady gait. Whatever survival instinct she possesses has kicked in at this point, and all she can think of is getting help, somewhere, anywhere. She gropes along the brick wall, searching for a door. Her hand meets a lever, and she pulls the door open and flings herself inside. Satsuki lies on cool checked linoleum, panting and coughing, with the curious sensation that the world is slipping out from underneath her.

The little café is bright and clean, patrons almost gone for the day. A teenage employee with bleached hair and a polyester skirt is chatting with an elderly customer when Satsuki bursts in. The employee takes one look and shrieks, tray of ramen crashing to the floor.


End file.
